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Iím trying to free up some space by moving music files to an external drive. I searched Apple Support, but did not quickly find help that met my needs.

I do not play music files with iTunes 10.2.2 (OS 10.5.8). I only use iTunes to make playlists of recorded vinyl albums and cassette tapes to play in the car.

So Iíve copied folders named by Artist from the iTunes Music folder to the external drive. With iTunes closed, I deleted one such folder containing only one album from the hard drive. Upon reopening iTunes, that playlist was still there, and the files were listed in Music (under Library on the sidebar) as well. Then I deleted the playlist for that artist, but the files were still listed in Music.

The files wonít play, because iTunes canít find them. Thatís fine. I only want to keep them in case a CD is destroyed or gets too many skips in it. Then I can burn another CD from the external drive, and I donít have to record again.

So, my question is this: Do I have to manually delete all playlists and individual songs? Now, there will be some things left behind that havenít been burned yet, so I donít want to do a global delete. Plus, this will be an ongoing enterprise; I have lots more to record.

Why not just move the iTunes library en-masse to the external drive. You'll get the best of both worlds. You'll regain local drive space, you'll have the folders on your external and your iTunes library will still 'work' so you won't need to micro-manage the tracks that are in or out of the library.

If you want to continue as you are I'd suggest doing all deletions in iTunes. That way the library file will be correctly updated.

Please use the reputation system if you think you've been helped - bottom left of this post

But the iTunes Music folder, where all the individual files are, is 11.55 GB

I'm not sure what else to move to the external drive, other than all those files. Then I'm not sure what else to delete from the hard drive.

I'm ok with a global transfer* to the external drive, just not a global delete on the hard drive to free up the space, which is my ultimate goal. As I said above, there are some that I want to keep on the hard drive. I'm waiting until I have other things recorded to go with some already recorded music on a series of CDs.

If I delete things in iTunes first, will the files in iTunes Music be deleted also?

Maybe there's a good "how to" on Apple's web site, but I didn't find it.

*I've already done a manual copy, but would be interested in learning the global method.

Thanks for going to the trouble of finding that link. I think my search turned up the same one. Look closely; at the top it says it's for iTunes on a Windows PC. Now, the basic steps may be similar, but it's mainly giving instructions on how to point iTunes to the new location. I don't need to do that. And step 14 is manual deletion.

If my iTunes folder is the equivalent to the iTunes Media folder, then there's no magic way to transfer the music. The actual transfer is glossed over in that set of steps, but implies that you just copy or move the entire folder.

Since all I'm after is storing the music, moving the iTunes Music folder, or the folders within it "cherry picking" style is all that I need to move.

I'm not willing to experiment, but I wonder if following step 14 would then get rid of all the "pointers" in iTunes automatically. It didn't when I deleted one artist folder, but if the whole thing goes, including the listed Libraries, it might.

Quit iTunes.
Connect the new drive
While holding the option key - open iTunes - it will ask you to select the Library file you want to use or create a new one - select create a new one
Go to iTunes - Preferences - Advanced - change the location to the new drive and close Preferences
Open Finder - navigate to the folder where all the music is stored - highlight all of it - drag it and drop it onto the iTunes icon in the Dock
iTunes will then copy all of it to the new drive and organize and have your new library all set up when it's done
Once it's done copying and you can verify everything is now in the new library - you can delete the old folder

I cannot be held responsible for the things that come out of my mouth.
In the Windows world, most everything folks don't understand is called a virus.

Thanks for those instructions. If I ever want to do a global copy and global delete, I'll give it a try. My "cherry picking" approach was not that bad. I copied 10 GB of music to an external drive, then deleted the songs manually, leaving several albums behind. It's all done now.